By Luis Manuel Aguana
It is not very difficult to imagine after the
events of January 5th that this parliamentary crisis was deliberately created
by those who were its main protagonists, the official opposition and the regime
of Nicolas Maduro Moros. The events that followed a supposed
"division" of the opposition, between those "opponents"
that sold out to the regime, and the other that comes out pristine and
unblemished to claim that it was mocked and expelled from Parliament, look like
a crude mise-en-scene that only seeks to refloat an image that we Venezuelans
already see fading gradually without giving a clear answer to the cessation of
the usurpation of Nicolás Maduro Moros.
The crisis in Venezuela began to turn -again-
to elect deputies to the National Assembly, taking us back to the beginning of
2015, where the campaigns of the parties asked the Venezuelans to wait a little
longer because as of January 2016 the opposition deputies already elected would
dismiss the regime. And Venezuela believed them. Venezuelans voted massively
for the opposition. And they lost. We all lost…
I wrote on December 7, 2015 asking myself
whether I had indeed won the MUD or lost the regime (see in Spanish ¿Gano la
MUD o perdió el gobierno? in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2015/12/gano-la-mud-o-perdio-el-gobierno.html). Four years later, the regime has shown that they actually won that
election. From the beginning, the regime neutralized the victory of the
opposition in the election of the National Assembly on December 6, 2015, as
well as all the victories that they have achieved (or been given) for one cause
or another. The case of the National Assembly itself is the best example of the
fact that there is not, nor will there be, an electoral solution as long as the
regime remains in power.
In my opinion, however, the most serious
aspect of all this is that the international community has been sold on the
electoral solution proposed by both the opposition and the regime, insisting
that the solution to the country's crisis lies in holding elections. That is a
solution for the political parties, not for the Venezuelans. It cannot be
understood that in a regime that has hijacked all public powers, and especially
the electoral power, the opposition parties still insist on selling us the
electoral solution with a corrupt CNE to end the crisis of the country.
For many years we have insisted that any
solution to the Venezuelan crisis must involve the participation of the
People's Sovereignty. Citizen participation IS NOT THE SAME AS ELECTIONS. In
fact, elections are a form of citizen participation in the matters that concern
us, and that goes much further than the punctual election of some officials to
public office; and that until now in those cases where opposition candidates
have been elected, the regime has managed to ignore them and imprison them.
This citizen participation has been denied to
us, both by the regime and by its opposition. The former have openly prevented
calls for recall referendums, and the latter have silenced outwardly the fact
that constitutionally we Venezuelans can directly exercise our sovereignty
through the mechanisms guaranteed to us by the Constitution itself. It is the
people themselves who must openly express their will in relation to the problem
that we Venezuelans are living through. And that expression, due to the
magnitude of the problem we are going through, cannot be through elections.
That general expression can only be expressed through a Popular Consultation
carried out by the citizens, regardless of the hijacking of the Electoral
Power. This is allowed by the Constitution through
its Article 70.
Since long before the ruling of the legitimate
TSJ of June 13, 2018 that declared the use of the Automated System for
elections in Venezuela VOID and ordered the restructuring of the CNE and the
Electoral Registry, we have stated that no more elections can be held in
Venezuela without having cleaned up the Electoral Power. The official
opposition political parties have openly ignored that Sentence in order to
continue going to electoral processes with the regime. That is unacceptable for
the citizens because it represents the open cohabitation that we have denounced
time and again, and that is already known by the International Community.
Hence we must address them directly and ask a
fundamental question: What else can we citizens do but insist that our right
under the Constitution to exercise our sovereignty directly is being violated?
We wish to denounce that the representatives of the opposition have intercepted
our constitutional desire to express ourselves and exercise our sovereignty
through the mechanisms of popular participation established in the Constitution
in order to decide the problem of Maduro and his criminal regime. However, this
solution has been silenced to the International Community by prioritizing
electoral arrangements with a regime that has done nothing but disregard the
will of the citizens by trampling the Constitution.
That is why a group of citizens propose to
the world a POPULAR CONSULTATION that restores the validity of the Constitution
of Venezuela, without the participation of ANY OF THE POWERS KIDNAPPED BY THE
REGIME. It is ALL THE CITIZENS, those invested and not invested with authority,
who have that obligation according to our Magna Carta in Article 333. We wish
to say that it is not only the Deputies, who are officials invested with
authority, but also the millions of Venezuelans who suffer in their own flesh
the humiliations of a criminal regime. That is why it is MANDATORY to CALL on
citizens to demonstrate and decide which path to follow.
However, even with this constitutional
prerogative, many still wonder how to do it if the regime has all the powers
seized. Well, the first thing we must ask ourselves is whether or not it is a
solution to call on the Sovereign People of Venezuela to decide, and whether
that would effectively take the regime off our backs, setting aside for the end
how we would effectively "collect" that mandate. It is like the
well-known story of the cat and the mouse, the question is not how to put the
bell on the cat to know when it is coming, but to ask ourselves if the bell is
indeed a solution or not. If we all agree that it is a solution, the next
problem to consider is how to put the device on the cat.
And since many may think that calling for
People's Sovereignty is not a solution, I will start there. There is no greater
political force than a people speaking in unison before the world about its
destiny. Take a look at history. Look at Gandhi's India and his people's
stubbornly peaceful effort to throw the English out of their land; look at the
concentrations caused by Martin Luther King's dream and the result of black
people's pressure for civil rights in the United States.
And without going any further in time and
place: look at July 16, 2017 in Venezuela, when the entire International
Community, after the extraordinary results of that civic celebration, WAS
WAITING FOR THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY to invest a new President in charge,
supported by the more than 7.5 million expressions of will expressed that day.
The regime was TECHNICALLY FALLEN and the "opposition" politicians
NEGOTIATED those results for a regional election. Never as before were we
closer to freedom than on July 16, 2017 if the official opposition had not
turned us in.
If the International Community is convinced
that the Popular Consultation is equally electoral because it summons the
people, is peaceful and is constitutional as it actually is, then all
international pressure must be directed NOT TO AN ELECTION as Maduro or his
customary opposition demands, but TO THE PEOPLE THAT EXPRESS THEIR VIEWS ABOUT
THE PERMANENCE OR NOT OF THE REGIME and that they act with the necessary force
and with the authorization of that same people as a result of that
consultation, in the case that the popular mandate is not fulfilled. Likewise,
this consultation should establish how the transition should be carried out and
the mechanism to choose this Transitional Government, finally establishing the
basis for a clean and transparent electoral process. That Transitional
Government would then have the necessary popular support to be stable and to
govern one of the most difficult periods that we Venezuelans will face.
If everyone is convinced to CONSULT THE
PEOPLE, as indeed the Venezuelan Catholic Church has already been convinced, as
expressed by its Bishops in their recent Episcopal Conference, the resources to
carry out the consultation, the organization and the people to carry it out,
where all Venezuelans in Venezuela and abroad would participate, will indeed
appear.
We Venezuelans therefore require that the
International Community change its position regarding the solution for
Venezuela and help us to summon Venezuelans to express themselves in accordance
with the Constitution IN A POPULAR CONSULTATION TO RESTORE THE CONSTITUTION.
That they understand that in Venezuela NO ELECTIONS CAN BE MADE TO ELECT ANYONE
WHILE THE REGIME IS IN FUNCTION, AND THAT THEIR SANCTIONS ARE TO OBLIGATE THEM
TO BE COUNTED IN PLEBISCITARY TERMS.. Only then will we begin to see light at
the end of the tunnel...
Caracas, January 17, 2020
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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